I'm posting this for two reasons: One, I want to know what people have
seen in comparing the AMD 3200 to an Intel 3.2GHz. Also, what are the
benefits of selecting the Intel system over AMD, or AMD over Intel
system.
I am tired of reading magazine reviews of the 2 systems side by side.
I'm curious what the real world has seen of these two systems. To me,
depending on who owns the magazine, it can be biased reporting.
And now you come to Usenet where you can get REALLY biased reporting!
:>
My goal is to purchase a replacement to my current Intel system in the
next 30 days, and outside of what's read in the magazines, I don't
know anyone with either the AMD or Intel systems running at the new,
higher speeds.
Presently, I'm biased towards the Intel system, only because I have
never owned an AMD based system. Are there software incompatibilities
to be worried about, or a unique set of patches that an operating
system may need based on the processor itself?
First off, the processor counts for dick-all when it comes to
compatibility issues. Sure, there are some minor errata for the
chips, both AMD and Intel document the bugs in their chips very
completely (there's no way in hell you would ever see that kind of bug
documentation from a software company!). It's perhaps interesting to
note that AMD consistently has fewer processor bugs than Intel, which
has lead to a bit of a joke that AMD is more Intel-compatible than
Intel is, though in reality it could simply be that Intel documents
their bugs a bit better. Either way, you're chances of EVER
encountering any of the problems listed on errata sheets is pretty
much nill.
Now, what IS important here is the motherboards. AMD and Intel
processors use quite different electrical and bus interfaces for their
processors, so obviously you can not stick a current AMD chip and an
Intel chip into the same motherboard. Where CPUs pretty much just sit
there and crunch numbers, motherboards are a bit trickier. CPUs don't
need any sort of drivers, motherboards do (or more specifically, the
chipsets used on the motherboard require drivers). This is where the
problems occur.
There are a fair number of companies that produce motherboard chipsets
for various markets, but when you look at chipset out there for
desktop systems you end up with the following options:
Intel P4 : Intel, VIA and SiS
AMD AthlonXP or Athlon64 : nVidia, VIA and SiS
Now, the problem with all of this is that drivers for motherboards
have, to put it bluntly, sucked ass. VIA in particular have a rather
poor reputation for their driver quality (another company called ALi
has a similarly bad reputation, but they've nearly been put out of
business so their chipsets are quite rare). SiS and Intel have both
been kind of on-again/off-again in their driver quality, though SiS
has never managed to loose their low-budget reputation, so their
chipsets are mainly found on cheap (and often poorly made) boards.
nVidia is a bit of a newcomer to the game (they only just started
making chipsets 2 or 3 years ago, though their claim to fame of sorts
is that they make the motherboard chipset used in Microsoft's XBox).
They don't have as long of a track-record as the others, but generally
speaking they have done a MUCH better job then the others.
Anyway, getting back to the subject of your post, the problem with AMD
is that they have often had really shitty chipsets to support their
processors. AMD does make their own chipsets, but only for high-end
workstations and servers. Until nVidia showed up, you were pretty
much stuck with either a really low-end board using an SiS chipset or
a board using a VIA chipset with really crappy drivers. This lead to
all kinds of compatibility problems that were blamed mostly on AMD.
Intel processors, on the other hand, mostly live on motherboards with
Intel chipsets. While Intel's record with chipset drivers has been
kind of weak, they weren't consistently bad like VIA. Much of this
reputation has lingered, despite the fact that nVidia has now given
AMD a really credible chipset supplier.
The main focus of this system will be for Photoshop, as well as
Illustrator, and some Video encoding and editing work. If it were for
surfing the web, and email, I'd stick with the current system I have.
Well, I won't go into too much detail in terms of performance because
there are TONS of web reviews out there that do a better job of
comparing the chips than I could do. I will agree with some other
posters here that the P4, generally speaking, does a better job at
most of the tasks you're looking at than the AthlonXP and often better
even than the new Athlon64.
However they are often close and different software can make a big
difference, even for what would see to be identical tasks. For
example, encoding video using the DivX codec is quite a bit faster on
the P4, but encoding video using XVid codec is quite a bit faster on
the Athlon64 and even the AthlonXP manages to outperform the P4. Both
XVid and DivX codecs are implementations of MPEG4 video compression,
both do the same basic job and produce very similar results, but the
performance of each can vary by a fair bit.
As a level set, the system that I eventually do get will have 1GB of
RAM, as well as 800MHz FSB.
Don't get too focused on that "800MHz FSB" thing. First off,
technically speaking, there is no such beast. Intel's Pentium 4
processors use a 64-bit 200MHz QDR processor bus, for an effective
800MT/s. AMD's AthlonXP chips use a 64-bit 200MHz DDR processor bus
for an effective 400MT/s. AMD's Athlon64 use a 64-bit wide 200MHz DDR
memory bus and a 16 + 16-bit wide 800MHz DDR I/O buses. In short,
it's a whole lot more complicated than the single "800MHz FSB" tag you
might see waved around. Heck, even the 'FSB' term, or "Front Side
Bus" doesn't make much sense anymore since we no longer have a
backside bus.
In the end, you can get data too/from the chip in a number of
different ways, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Generally speaking, the Athlon64 is a tiny bit better at this data
moving than the Pentium4 which is in turn better than the AthlonXP.
After all this, I've most likely just ended up confusing the situation
more than helping, so I'll try to sum a few things up with some simple
recommendations here:
For what you're looking at, I would personally recommend a either a
2.8C GHz P4 processor and a motherboard using an Intel i865 chipset
motherboard. MSI makes a nice motherboard called the 865PE Neo2.
There are other, faster options, but this combo should probably give
you really good bang for your buck. The "2.8C GHz P4" has the 800MT/s
processor bus, as opposed to the "2.8GHz P4" that has only a 533MT/s
bus. Of course, the 3.0C and 3.2GHz P4 chips will offer a bit more
performance, but they'll add a fair bit to the cost and typically the
small improvement in performance isn't worth the large extra cost.
Similarly, most review sites test the P4 on the slightly faster i875
chipset instead of the i865 chipset, but the difference is only 2-3%
in performance but $75-$100 in cost.
AMD makes some great chips, and for many applications I highly
recommend them. However, for your specific use, Intel's chips have a
tendency to do a bit better than the AthlonXP. The new Athlon64 is
certainly an option, however these chips tend to be a bit more
expensive for the performance they offer (for your applications, in
some other apps they offer great performance for their price) and I'm
not entirely satisfied with the selection of motherboards for them at
the moment (most Athlon64 motherboards use VIA chipsets, and while
VIA's drivers have improved in the past 5 years, they still have more
than their fair share of itzy-little problems that tend to cause
premature graying of the hair).
Of course, the processor is only one piece of the puzzle. On top of
that you'll want to find yourself some good, brand-name DDR400 memory.
More specifically, you'll want 2 sticks of 512MB a piece (in most
current P4 boards you need to add memory in matched pairs). The easy
way to find good quality memory it to go to
www.crucial.com. Crucial
is Micron's retail front-end (Micro = the second or third largest
memory producer in the world). However, you can simply get the memory
from the same store you bought your processor and motherboard. If you
go that route, I have two pieces of advice: 1. do NOT buy the
"generic" memory, it will OFTEN have a dead cell or two that will
cause totally random and hard to identify problems, and 2. do not buy
the super-dooper whiz-bang memory with Blinky Lights (tm) that many
companies are trying to sell, it's no faster but costs a LOT more. My
regular on-line vendor carries some Samsung memory modules for a great
price, and it's likely that wherever you buy stuff they will have a
similar sort of deal.
There's also the question of video cards. This discussion is perhaps
best left to others as I'm no expert, but a good 2D card is probably
your best bet, perhaps an ATI Radeon 9200 or even a Radeon 9600?
Don't go all out for the top-end cards unless you're a hardcore gamer,
the performance for non-games doesn't change much. On the flip-side,
don't cheap out too much or image quality may suffer a bit (this is
particular a concern if you have a 19" or larger monitor or a 17"+
LCD).
The last thing to think about is your hard drive. The hard drive
plays a MAJOR role in determining not only the overall speed of the
system, but also the perceived "feel" of the system. A system with a
really fast hard drive will feel much more responsive, even if it
doesn't speed up long calculations any. Your best bet for hard drive
comparisons is the website:
www.storagereview.com, they REALLY know
their stuff and compare most common drives. Personally my choice
would be either a Seagate or Maxtor 120GB SATA drive with 8MB of
cache. Those two companies tend to make *quiet* drives (something I
appreciate) while still being pretty fast. If you aren't as worried
about noise as me, Western Digital drives tend to be a bit faster.
Either way, a fast SATA drive with 8MB of cache is highly recommended
IMO. The large cache really helps performance and while SATA doesn't
improve performance much over ATA100 or ATA133 drives, it's sort of
the standard for the future, plus it also makes cabling inside your
case easier.
So, to sum up, I would get a system that looked like the following:
Intel P4 2.8C GHz processor
MSI 865 Neo2-PLS motherboard
2 x 512MB brand-name memory
Sapphire Radeon 9200 video card
Maxtor DiamondMax 9 SATA, 8MB cache, 120GB hard drive
Plus whatever accompanied peripherals you need.
(processor).
No, I'm not
)